A circuit board connector typically comprises an elongated, rigid dielectric housing containing one or more rows of leaf spring electrical terminals. A card edge type connector is adapted with a receptacle opening into which may be plugged a circuit card having conductive circuits thereon for frictional and electrical engagement by the leaf spring terminals. A stackable connector is adapted to receive conductive electrical post terminals of another circuit board connector into the receptacle opening for frictional and electrical engagement by the leaf spring terminals. Either type of circuit board connector may be a ZIF type wherein the housing is provided with a camming mechanism which resiliently deflects the leaf spring terminals away from the receptacle opening, to allow entry of the circuit card or conductive terminals without undue frictional engagement by the leaf spring terminals. The camming mechanism releases the leaf spring terminals so that they resiliently spring into frictional engagement with the card or the post terminals.
A ZIF connector is mounted on a circuit board by its leaf spring terminals, which extend below the connector housing and which are driven into apertures of the circuit board with a compression fit. Some circuit board mounted connectors are sufficiently rugged to withstand forceful driving of the terminals into circuit board apertures, even with the connector housing preassembled over the terminals. However, the trend toward miniaturization in electronic circuits has necessitated connectors which are not adaptable for preassembly, prior to driving the terminals in a circuit board. Miniaturized connectors are less rugged and are provided with thinner, more densely spaced terminals. A larger number of terminals is allowed by dense spacing, with larger forces needed to drive the terminals into a circuit board. The densely spaced, fragile terminals are susceptible to damage by slightly misaligned insertion tooling. If the terminals are preassembled in a connector housing, the presence of the housing provides a further impediment to alignment of the insertion tooling. Replacing a terminal damaged by the insertion procedure is further impeded by presence of the housing. Accordingly, the accepted assembly procedure has heretofore required insertion of the terminals while they remained separate from the housing and still connected to a carrier strip. One example of a machine for inserting the terminals is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,875,636. Following insertion of the terminals, the carrier strip was removed and the connector housing then was carefully assembled onto the terminals. An example of such a housing is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,905,665. The housing has an open bottom allowing the housing to pass freely over the inserted terminals. A latching finger is molded to the housing which latches to one of the terminals, thereby retaining the housing in place.